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ADDRESS 



OP THE 



UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE 

PyJ^ 1^ OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



ADDRESS 



UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 



To THE People of Pennsylvania : 

The day is rapidly approaching upon which you will be 
called to choose between rival candidates for the high offices of 
Governor of the Commonwealth, and Judge of its Supreme 
Judicial tribunal. To the one is to be committed the executive 
power of your great and noble State, and to the other a weighty 
voice in deciding questions closely affecting your most sacred 
rights of persons and of property. 

To an intelligent exercise of your right of suffrage, it is very 
necessary that you should clearly understand the difference 
between the party whose nominees are Andrew G. Curtin and 
Daniel H. Agnew and the party whose nominees are George 
W. Woodward and Walter H. Lowrie. It is, therefore, in 
obedience to a custom, wise and time-honored, that you are 
addressed by the official representatives of each organization 
in behalf of their respective principles and candidates. 

It is not vague commonplace but solemn truth to say, that 
there never was a political contest in America whose issues 
were so important and so vital to the life of the republic as are 
those involved in the pending canvass. In other days we pru- 



4 ADDRESS OF THE 

dently occupied our minds with questions of State policy, local 
alike in their interest and their influence; but to-day the citi- 
Eens of Pennsylvania ascend to the higher and broader ground 
whereon the nation struggles for its life, and the ballots of free- 
men were never more weighty with great consequences than 
those now resting in their hands, containing, as they probably 
do, not only the question of civil war at our own homes, not 
only the fate of our Constitution and Union, but the destiny 
of free government throughout the world. 

It is a source, therefore, of profound gratitude with all re- 
flecting men that, while all the gentlemen in nomination bear 
characters alike honorable and without stain, thus entitling 
them to the fullest presumption of honest motives and consci- 
entious convictions, yet the lines of division are drawn with 
such distinctness, the policy proposed is so plainly difierent, 
and the principles avowed so radically hostile, that no man of 
ordinary intelligence need hesitate in his choice. 

The history of America before our civil war began, is read 
and known of all men. In the years of our colonization, we 
were obedient to the plain purpose of God in reserving this 
continent as a theatre whereon the capacity of the human race 
for self-government should be fully and fairly tested ; and the 
men to whom was entrusted the great experiment in civilization 
fitly builded their infant States upon the principles of civil and 
religious liberty. 

When the condition of colonial dependency ceased to protect 
these principles, the scattered settlements came together in the 
presence of a common danger, and in the interest of human 
freedom declared their independence. Joseph Warren, proto- 
martyr of the Revolution, writing, just before his death, to 
Quincy, says : — " I am convinced that the true spirit of liberty 



UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 5 

was never so universally diffused through all ranks and condi- 
tions of men on the face of the earth as it now is through all 
North America." 

In this spirit and for this cause our fathers endured seven 
weary years of unequal warfare, and that their children to the 
third and fourth generation should understand the purpose of 
the great struggle in the calm peace which followed victory, 
they solemnly engraved it above the entrance to the sources of 
the fundamental law, declaring it to be, " To secure the bless- 
ings of liberty to the people and to their posterity." 

The government of the United States, thus plainly established 
to preserve the liberties of its people, contained an element of 
weakness and discord in the recognition of the legal existence 
of slavery. It was believed, however, that this evil would soon 
disappear, and Jefferson vied with Franklin in his efforts to 
secure a result earnestly desired by all good men. In the 
course of a few years it was confined nominally, as it had long 
really been, to the States lying south of the line of Mason and 
Dixon : and patriots of all parties rejoiced in the hope of its 
speedy and total disappearance. 

This reasonable hope was destined to disappointment. In 
1820, the first great concession was demanded by the slave- 
holding interest at the hands of the national Legislature, and 
for the sake of harmony Missouri was admitted into the Union 
as a slave State. Then followed other and greater demands in 
favor of slavery, urged with increasing arrogance ; and not- 
withstanding the wonderful prosperity which, like a benedic- 
tion, attended the North, and the stagnation and decay which 
began to cover and cling like a curse to the lands tilled by 
enforced and unpaid labor, a party, small in numbers, but great 
in the intellectual powers of its leaders and devoted to the de- 



6 ADDRESS OF THE 

fence and propagandism of American slavery, by the free and 
alternate Uwse of flattery and threats, wrung obedience to its 
requirements from the unwilling hands of American statesmen. 

What followed is a thrice-told tale. The admission of new 
slave States ; the annexation of Texas ; the war with Mexico ; 
the consequent accession of great territories in the southwest ; 
the compromise legislation of 1850, including the Fugitive Slave 
law ; the repeal of the Missouri compromise ; the lawless inva- 
: ion of Kansas by the ruffians of the southern border, with its 
attendant slaughter of peaceful northern settlers ; and the cul- 
minating efforts of the administration of Mr. Buchanan, to force 
by the bayonet a pro-slavery constitution, whose provisions 
were disgraceful to civilized human nature, upon the heroic 
people of that devoted territory. What were all these but the 
successive steps in the long and painful descent, whereby the 
conservative, law-abiding people of the North vainly endeavored 
to appease and even to satisfy the constant aggressions of their 
slaveholding brethren ! 

The political history of America for forty years is written 
in this brief statement of concessions to slavery. We had done 
much to please its friends. We had surrendered, almost with- 
out the forms of protest, the chief executive offices of the nation 
to their keeping. They were filled either by themselves, or by 
those Northern gentlemen whom they graciously selected for 
the merit of prompt and unquestioning obedience to their com- 
mands. The judicial branch of the government, entrusted with 
the construction of the Federal charter, and the consequent 
abrogation, when necessary, of all laws. State and national, 
was composed of judges of their choice. The representatives 
of the nation at the Courts of Europe had been trained with 
their training. The conservative branch of the national Legis- 
lature was unquestionably under their control. 



UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 7 

We had parted with many plain rights to satisfy them. We 
endured the. utter denial of free speech, and even of unmolested 
travel in the Southern States. We waived the protection of the 
Federal law, which should have covered us as with a shield, every- 
where heneath the Federal flag, and consented to receive instead 
the jurisdiction of ruffianly mobs, bred and fostered in slavery. 
We saw without complaint the North made a vast hunting- 
ground for fugitives from bondage. We accepted with meek- 
ness the constant taunts of our social and political inferiority. 
We permitted our representatives to be threatened with personal 
violence in the streets of the capital. We stifled our just and 
sacred wrath when a Northern Senator, graced with all gener- 
ous culture and bearing the commission of a free commonwealth, 
was beaten by slaveholders to the verge of death on the floor 
of the Senate, for words spoken for liberty in debate. Endur- 
ing all in patience, for the sake of peace and union we sat in 
quiet obedience to the law, unwilling but submissive pupils, 
receiving lessons of chivalric honor from Mr. Brooks, and of 
chivalric manners from Mr, Wigfall, of loyalty from Mr. Davis, 
and of honesty from Mr. Floyd. 

At last, in the year of grace 1860, the Constitution afforded 
to the citizens of the lahd the privilege of again expressing by 
their votes their choice of national rulers. They exercised 
that right quietly, peaceably, and in perfect obedience to the 
form and the spirit of all our laws. 

The lawful discharge of this high duty, imposed upon all 
good men by their country, was declared by a few bad, bold 
men, to be just cause of civil war. This proposition involved, 
of course, the startling doctrine that Northern men must vote 
in the interest of slavery, or its friends would appeal from the 
ballot to the bullet, destroy the Constitution, dissolve the 
Union, and deluge all the land with its most precious blood. 



8 ADDRESS OF THE 

It must be remembered that the Senate, without whose con- 
sent no law can be enacted, was pro-slavery. The Supreme 
Court, against whose judgment no law, if enacted, could avail, 
was pro-slavery. There was, therefore, no danger possible to 
the institution ; and it was simply because once in forty years 
the people had lawfully chosen a President who was believed 
to be opposed to further concessions to slavery, that an em- 
bittered and malignant faction, who had been long nursing 
their treason, declared their purpose to cause to flow all the 
terrible evils following in the train of this cruel war, which has 
wasted our substance and placed our chiefest treasures beneath 
the seals of clay. The utter groundlessness of their complaints, 
and the want of even a decent pretext for their threatened 
crime against their country, was placed in full light before the 
world when Alexander 11. Stephens spoke to the people of 
Georgia those memorable words, which history will always 
remember, sealing' with the seal of lasting condemnation this 
wicked and causeless rebellion. 

" What right has the north assailed ? What interest 
OF the south has been. invaded ? What justice has been 

DENIED ? OR WHAT CLAIM FOUNDED ON JUSTICE OR RIGHT HAS 
BEEN WITHHELD ? CaN EITHER OF YOU TO-DAY NAME ONE 
GOVERMENTAL ACT OF WRONG DELIBERATELY AND PURPOSELY 
DONE BY THE GOVERNMENT AT WASHINGTON OF WHICH THE SOUTH 
HAS A RIGHT TO COMPLAIN ? I CHALLENGE AN ANSWER !" 

While the ablest statesman of the south was endeavoring with 
words like these to stay the hands of traitors raised to dishonor 
our flag, to destroy our government, and to afflict us with the 
awful sufferings of civil strife, the Honorable George W. Wood- 
ward, then and now a Judge of the Supreme Court of Penn- 
sylvania, deliberately disrobed himself of his ermine, and 



UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 9 

walking from the seat of judgment to the platform of a great 
meeting assembled in Independence Square, ground sacred to 
freedom, spoke, and over and beyond his audience to the mad- 
dened partisans of slavery, ripe for revolt and battle, these 
words of sympathy with their baseless and pretended wrongs : 
"Everywhere in the south the people are beginning to 

LOOK out for the MEANS OF SELF-DEFENCE. CoULD IT BE EX- 
PECTED that they WOULD BE INDIFFERENT TO SUCH SCENES AS 
HAVE OCCURRED ?— -THAT THEY WOULD STAND IDLE AND SEE 
MEASURES CONCERTED AND CARRIED FORWARD FOR THE ANNI- 
HILATION, SOONER OR LATER, OF THEIR PROPERTY IN SLAVES ? 
Such EXPECTATIONS, if indulged, ARE NOT REASONABLE." 

And these words of encouragement, exaggerating the source 
of strength of which they boasted most : " When you combine 

ALL IN ONE glowing PICTURE OF NATIONAL PROSPERITY, RE- 
MEMBER THAT COTTON, THE PRODUCE OF SLAVE LABOR, HAS 
BEEN ONE OF THE INDISPENSABLE ELEMENTS OF ALL THIS PROS- 
PERITY IT MUST BE AN INDISPENSABLE ELEMENT IN ALL OUR 

FUTURE PROSPERITY. I SAY IT MUST BE." 

And these sad words, sounding like an invitation to treason : 
" The law of self-defence includes right of property as well 
as person, and it appears to me there must be a time in the progress 
of this conflict, if it indeed is irrepressible, when slaveholders 
may lawfully fall back on their natural rights, and employ in 
defence of their property whatever means of protection they 
possess or can command. They who push on this conflict have 
convinced one or more Southern States that it has already 

come." 

And these sadder words of attempted consecration of that 
fearful combining of crimes against God and all his creatures 
which is called American slavery: ''The Providence of that 



10 -':-•:• ADDRESS OF THE 

good Being who has watched over lis from the beginning and 
saved us from external foes, has so ordered our internal relations 
as to make negro slavery an incalculable blessing to us. Who- 
ever will study the Patriarchal and Levitical institutions, will 
see the principle of human bondage divinely sanctioned if not 
divinely ordained." 

The address thus delivered went forth with the added weight 
of judicial sanction, and, aided by jnany others of kindred im- 
port, produced its legitimate effect in convincing the traitors 
who had hesitated that a large and influential portion of the 
Northern people were heartily with them in spirit, and only 
awaited fitting opportunity to become active accomplices in 
their treason. Then followed in necessary sequence the bom- 
bardment of Fort Sumter, and the opening of that great historic 
drama whose shadow, after two weary years of sacrifice of 
treasure and of life, still darkens all our land ; whose sorrows 
have reached all our hearts, and whose terrible consequences 
to the cause of American democracy and of Christian civiliza- 
tion itself as yet we very dimly comprehend. 

For those words, and only for those words, thus early, pub- 
licly, and distinctly spoken, tendering sympathy, encourage- 
ment, invitation, consecration even, to the cause of the re- 
bellion. Judge Woodward has been placed in nomination as a 
candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, and the opinions there 
expressed have been distinctly reaffirmed, and made the present 
platform of his supporters : the Hon. Charles J. Biddle, their 
official representative, in his recent address to the people of 
the State, declaring " this speech to have been vindicated by sub- 
sequent events as a signal exhibition of statesmanlike sagacity." 

The faction in Pennsylvania, wearing the livery of the good 
old Democratic party to aid rebellion waged in the interest of 



UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 11 

an aristocracy of slaveholders, thus openly avows its opinions, 
and in manifold ways, by speech and press, by the secret oaths 
of a treasonable conspiracy, by appeals to the prejudices of 
ignorant men, by calumnies against our brave soldiers and 
sailors, by denial of their rights of suffrage, and by constant 
misrepresentations of the aims and results of the war, endeavors 
to attain its purpose of assisting the armed traitors who are 
striking deadly blows at the heart of the republic. 

Our opponents well know that the only strength of the re- 
bellion consists in its military power. Therefore they oppose 
every measure which tends to strengthen the national armies, 
and they support every measure which tends to weaken them. 
If the general government proposes to require white men to 
render military service, they oppose it as unconstitutional and 
oppressive. If the general government proposes to require 
black men to render military service, they oppose it as uncon- 
stitutional and favoring negro equality. If the general govern- 
ment proposes to require red men to render military service, 
they oppose it as unconstitutional and contrary to the usages 
of civilized warfare ; and they have thus far failed to discover 
among the races of mankind any people whose skin is of the 
proper constitutional color to permit the government to use 
them to shoot rebels and traitors. 

Our opponents denounce the arrest of disloyal persons as 
violating personal liberty. They denounce the suppression of 
disloyal practices as indicating military tyranny. They thwart 
the needed reinforcements of our wasted armies, and the collec- 
tion of the national revenue by base appeals to the basest 
impulses of men, and the inauguration of riot, rapine and 
murder, bringing the terrors of civil war to our very hearth- 
stones. Thus, by paralyzing the strength and vigor of the 



12 ADDRESS OF THE 

mailed hand of the nation, they give essential aid and comfort 
to the nation's enemies. Their cardinal principle is to embarrass 
the Federal administration in all its measures for the vigorous 
prosecution of the conflict, for the prompt suppression of the 
rebellion and the swift punishment of traitors. 

It is needless to say that their triumph in the pending canvass 
would 'prolong the ivar. It is confessed at Richmond that the 
only relief afforded to the darkness and disasters which en- 
shroud the rebel capital, and the only encouragement to con- 
tinue a hopeless contest, comes with the occasional gleams of 
successes of their Northern allies. 

On all other sides despair awaits them. They see two-thirds 
of their territory conquered and held in subjection ; New 
Orleans returned to its allegiance ; the Mississippi open ; all 
their harbors blockaded ; Charleston assailed ; Rosecrans and 
Burnside moving in triumph, and the great struggle which 
embraced more than half the Union narrowing to Georgia, 
South Carolina, and portions of North Carolina and Virginia. 
The end is not distant. It can only be delayed, and the way 
to it piled with the bodies of the brave men who willingly taste 
death for their country, by the triumph of Northern sympa- 
thizers with treason at the approaching elections. Such triumph 
would revive the desperate and drooping fortunes of the rebels, 
inspirit their demoralized and deserting armies, and persuade 
their rulers to renewed efforts to gather and hurl new levies 
upon our defenders in the field. 

It follows necessarily that the triumph of our opponents, by 
prolonging the war, will render necessary renewed conserip- 
tions, and inc^-ease the burdens of taxation. One way only 
leads to a shoft war, and a lasting peace, and that is the glo- 
rious path along which Rosecrans is marching, and Banks, and 



UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 13 

Grant and Meade. Everything which tends, directly or indi- 
rectly, to weaken or embarrass these blessed peace-makers is 
comforting to the enemy, inducing them to refuse submission 
to the laws, and to continue to waste more of our treasure and 
murder others of our sons. The future will lay the responsi- 
bility of lengthening this horrible conflict, with whatever of 
sacrifice its continuance involves, upon those Northern men 
who supply its want of bullets by their ballots, and by their 
sympathy nerve its arm for further blows. 

To these principles, to this policy, to the results they so 
plainly involve, of a long war, of other drafts and of more 
heavy taxes, as well as to the candidates who represent them, 
the loyal men of Pennsylvania are irreconcilably opposed. 

Our platform is brief and plain and comprehensive. We 
believe that the will of the people, lawfully expressed, is the 
supreme law ; that no appeal can be permitted from votes to 
bayonets, and that when such appeal is made, the only hope 
for the Republic is to crush it by force of arms. We, there- 
fore, support the war without limitations or conditions as the 
only means of preserving the national integrity. 

We honor and sustain our heroic brethren in arms, on land 
and sea, the unselfish heroism whose daily lives surpasses all 
that is written in the knightly romance of the middle age. 
They deserve well of their country, and we desire that the banner 
of the Union shall carry to its defenders, wherever they may 
be, the right of suffrage — the inestimable privilege of freemen. 

We heartily sustain Abraham Lincoln, the President of the 
United States, in his efforts to suppress this wicked revolt 
against the laws he has sworn to enforce. 

For the vigorous use of all men and all means permitted by 
the usages of civilized nations, to reach peace through victory; 



14 ADDRESS OF THE 

for the unequaled maintenance of the national credit, without 
parallel in history; for the admirable frankness with which the 
President connsels with the people ; and for the successes 
which are everywhere crowning our arms, the Federal Govern- 
ment deserves and receives the gratitude of all who love their 
country. It alone, with the help of Providence, can save the 
life of the Republic. It alone, with the same aid, can pre- 
serve us as a nation. If, therefore, anything is left undone, 
which some think ought to have been done, or anything has 
been done which some think should have been left undone, we 
reserve these matters for more opportune discussion in the 
calmer days of peace. To-day, while armed rebels threaten 
the Federal capital, and trample flag and law and Constitution 
under their feet, we come together without distinction of party, 
in loyal union, and pledge to the Administration, which repre- 
sents the government of our fathers, our earnest and uncondi- 
tional support. 

These are the principles and this is the policy of the loyal 
men of Pennsylvania. To represent it they offer to your suf- 
frages our present GovfTnor, Andrew G. Curtin. He needs 
no eulogy, for he has so borne himself in his high oflSce, that 
his name is known and honored through all the land, winning 
the love of the soldiers and the respect and confidence of a 
patriotic constituency. His great services to the cause of the 
Union in its most deadly peril, his constant solicitude and care 
for the brave men he sent to battle, his foresight, his energy, 
his faithfulness in the discharge of every duty, impelled a 
grateful people to disregard his declination, and place once 
more the banner of the Union in his tried and trusty hands. 

In the Honorable Daniel H. Agnew a candidate is presented 
worthy of the support of all ;iien who desire to maintain the 



UNION STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 15 

high character for ripe and varied learning, for unsuspected 
loyalty to the government, and for adherence to the duty of 
declaring, not making, the law, which our supreme judicial 
tribunal won and wore in other days. Judge Agnew is an ac- 
complished lawyer, is now the Presiding Judge of his district, 
and his elevation to the bench of the Supreme Court will give 
additional security to the rights of persons and property. 

Freemen of Pennsylvania : The issue is thus distinctly pre- 
sented involving the single question of loyalty to the govern- 
ment under which you live, and the triumph of whose arms 
alone can give you peace, and again open to you the avenues 
to that almost miraculous prosperity which attracted the won- 
dering gaze of the nations. 

It only remains for all good men to perfect the local organi- 
zations of the friends of the Union, to secure full discussion of 
the questions in dispute, to bring every loyal vote to the polls, 
and to use all proper eflForts in their power to secure our suc- 
cess. If this is done, Pennsylvania is saved to the Union, and 
the Union is saved to us and to our posterity. 

Thus we gather for the contest around worthy bearers of a 
worthy standard, written all over with unconditional loyalty ; 
and under their good leadership we march forward with the 
faith and hope of Christian men, to the victory which awaits 
the cause of justice and of freedom. 

In behalf of the Union State Central Committee, 

Wayne McVeagh, Chairman. 



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